'Volunteer' deals with others' woes

Khalfan al Marar devotes his time to tackling complaints about the way residents are treated in the UAE.

Khalfan al Marar has set up a website that allows residents of the UAE to register complaints if they feel they are being treated unfairly.

ABU DHABI // By day he works as an auditor, but by night Khalfan al Marar is a consumer champion, devoting his time to UAE residents who feel they have been treated unfairly by government departments or businesses. Mr Marar wants his project, Intelligent Vision of UAE, to become the biggest source of customer feedback in the country through his website, www.ivuae.com. He works on the project in his spare time and does not charge for the service.

Since its launch in February, IVUAE has received more than 50 complaints and suggestions ranging from recruitment problems with public sector departments to clarifications on company policies. "One complaint came from someone who applied for a job three years ago and she's still waiting for a response," Mr Marar said. "They kept promising her a position, but now they are saying there are no more jobs. We just want to figure out what happened."

Mr Marar, 29, from Al Ain, describes the website as his contribution to the Government's strategy to improve the quality of services available in the Emirates. "We need to give a voice to people and to try to get these messages through to those in the concerned departments or companies," he said. "It is very important because we are in a very competitive market and if we don't improve our services we will lag behind. As a citizen, I feel I have to do my part."

Mr Marar works as an internal auditor at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, but it was his university studies in quality management that gave him the idea to launch the confidential Arabic and English service to provide a link between service providers and consumers. The guidelines, he says, are based on European standards of quality management. "It's not full-time, I'm just a kind of volunteer," said Mr Marar, sitting at a cafe in the capital's central business district. "I just want to contribute to the Government's vision."

The idea, he said, was to have "an independent, unbiased, confidential party to receive the information, deliver to those in the concerned authority and to collect the feedback". People who register complaints will be issued with a tracking number so they can monitor the status of their query. The messages received via the website are compiled on a weekly basis and then distributed to the concerned organisations for a response.

"I have spoken to many people and they are very happy with the idea and can't wait to use it because they don't want to just keep their problems to themselves ? they want to do something about it," said Mr Marar, who has worked on the project with two other people. "The role of the website is as a bridge between the customer and the service provider. "Through this website, we can make sure that someone addresses the problem."

One success story was a complaint made against a franchise in the UAE. Mr Marar says he was able to bring the matter to the attention of the company's headquarters in the United States, which sided with the consumer and forced the franchisee to adhere to the organisation's official policy. The idea for IVUAE came after an accident in 2005 left Mr Marar bedridden for several months. While he was checking the construction work at a villa belonging to his family, he fell and broke his right knee and left ankle, which forced him to defer his university studies.

@Email:[e-mail]